“The output was not marked as being directly premised on copyrighted work”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Midjourney's output was not labelled as being directly based on copyrighted work.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Gary Marcus wrote it
Marcus on AI, An artist fights back, and Midjourney has embarrassed themselves, paragraph 10.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment marcus-an-artist-fights-back-and-midjourney-050eae-a1
We recorded 3 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-29. The source may have been edited after 2023-12-23. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
From the speaker
- The output
- was not marked
- as being directly premised on copyrighted work
Our interpretation
- Read as: the Midjourney v6 images Southen generated in December 2023 came with no label, attribution, or warning in the interface saying they were based on a specific copyrighted work.
Counts as supported if: Screenshots from the time, documentation, or reporting show that Midjourney outputs carried no source attribution or copyright notice.
Counts as contradicted if: Evidence shows that Midjourney's interface did label or attribute such outputs to their copyrighted source, or warn about them.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
The claim is plausible. No source found shows Midjourney attaching source attribution to outputs, and one December 2023 report notes users may infringe without realizing it. But the only source found that states the point directly repeats Marcus's own sentence. No independent source or Midjourney document directly describing the labels on the outputs was found. Without such a source, the claim cannot be scored as supported or contradicted.
Limitations
- Absence of labelling is hard to document from secondary sources.
- Southen's original screenshots could not be read.
Evidence (1 item)
Context only: The Decoder,
there may be cases where users violate copyrights but do not realize it because they are not known subjects
Why it matters here: Implies users are not told when an output copies a protected work, but it does not directly describe the interface or labels on Southen's outputs.
- Publisher
- The Decoder
- Kind of source
- News report
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
Midjourney documentation or archived screenshots from December 2023 showing the information shown with generated images, or an independent report describing it.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Marcus on AI, An artist fights back, and Midjourney has embarrassed themselves
The output was not marked as being directly premised on copyrighted work
- Where
- paragraph 10
- Published
- 2023-12-23
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment marcus-an-artist-fights-back-and-midjourney-050eae-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment marcus-an-artist-fights-back-and-midjourney-050eae-a1.